A Bagel Discovery in Poland

I am back from spending 36 hours in Poland and the trip was both productive and a blast. I tried borscht, perogies and surprisingly found the equivalent of a bagel in a grocery store.  The bagel find was quite significant in my books.

 Photo Source: Simply Recipes

My Bagel Story: On our way back to Prague, we stopped into Carrefour to pick up up some groceries and grab a quick snack.  If you are a consistent reader of Lamb411, you have hopefully caught on to the fact that I have a thing for grocery stores in foreign cities and tend to frequent at least one grocery store per trip.

Now, the last time I set foot in a Carrefour must have been when I was living in China in 2007, so my memory of my in-store experience may be a bit fuzzy.  I would describe my Carrefour experience in Poland as the following:  Imagine that Nestle, Gillette, Proctor and Gamble, Unilever and a couple random Polish brands got together to create a grocery store.  At least 75% of the packaged goods in the store were from multinational CPG brands.  It was like I was in a bizzaro world or something.   I was dumbfounded that the experience of shopping in Carrefour was no different than walking into an American grocery store- well except it was a little more disorganized and disheveled looking when it comes to merchandise- and it had smaller aisles.

In the baked goods section, I select what looks like a series of dinner rolls stuck together in the shape of a flower (six rolls with one in the centre), for my snack.  It was the kind of roll where each ball is a different flavour.  I had zero expectations that this would be remotely satisfying and wait until I am back in the car to dig in.  I tear off a ball and take a bite…

What do I discover?  I swear I had a bagel in my mouth from Toronto’s What a Bagel.  It was soft, doughy, chewy and had poppy seeds.  The taste profile was an identical match to a North American bagel.  It was then after eating another roll that I was convinced the recipe must have come from Poland.

Photo Source: 1 

All this time, I thought bagels were a New York invention, although some Montrealers may argue otherwise.

My curiosity led me to do a quick fact check, (there is even a book on the history of the bagel) and low and behold my suspicions were confirmed.  Bagels came to North America by way of Poland!!  They are a Polish invention.

If I had cream cheese and lox on me I would have turned my flower shaped dinner roll-bagel-in-hiding-snack into a mini brunch in the car.

Happy Thanksgiving (or long weekend) to Canada.  You would be proud, we made a turkey breast for two.  Actually, my husband made the turkey breast and found a neat beer-spiced rubbed recipe, which we will feast on tomorrow night.  Who said you could not combine Canadian and Czech culinary traditions!

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